WardHolbrook

That would be my assessment as well.

That's the unit I referred to in an earlier post. It's a freaking magic box! Several years ago the Falcon 50 I was flying was in the shop for a routine inspection and a mechanic's rolling tool cabinet was accidentally pushed into the leading edge of one of the wings. The dent was about 1" long, but it was in a critical area and would have otherwise required replacing the slat at a cost of over $100,000. (Yes, $100K +) A call to the factory put us onto some guy that went around the country pulling dents out of airplanes with one of those boxes. I think he charged the maintenance shop $500 to do it. It didn't take him very long and when he was finished it looked absolutely pristine.

It's common practice to contact the manufacturer in the event of aircraft damage to get their verdict on airworthiness and/or repair strategies. Some have said that Mooney was simply covering their nether region - perhaps, but the likelihood is that they took a close look at the photos and found the damage to be problematic. The fact that one or more AIs have given it their blessing means nothing if it is indeed found to be unairworthy. In fact, if it is determined to be unairworthy those same AIs can expect some FAA sanctions or actions against their certificates. My hope is that our friend will go to the meeting with the proper attitude. Those "M....F....ing FAA" comments won't win him much sympathy down at the FSDO. If he gets too belligerent they could even find a way to go after him for operating an unairworthy airplane. I wish him well with this.

Depending on how bad and where the dents are you might be able to use one of the electronic dent repair systems. We've used them a couple of times on the jets and it doesn't cost much and it works surprisingly well.

Hopefully, this will turn out like the "FAA's Q-Tip Propeller Fiasco", but something tells me it's not. I can tell that not too many here have had the privilege of taking an airplane through a FAA Part 135 Compliance Inspection or NASIP Inspection. They're kind'a like an IRS Compliance Audits only much more intense - Vaseline and rubber gloves come to mind. You have my sympathy and if your airplane is up to snuff you will have no worries, If it's not then you'll just have to bring it up to the point where it is. Also, the fact that it has been signed off previously is meaningless. If it turns out that there have been some discrepancies that were overlooked or signed off during previous annuals those IAs will be in for some quality one-on-one time with the FAA as well, not to mention that there my be cause for you to go after the guy who did your prepurchase inspection - he may have missed some important (to the FAA at least) stuff. Good luck.

Best post on this thread.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I really don't know how much, if anything, they can ascertain via a cursory visual inspection on a walk around. I remember the brouhaha that happened about 20 years ago when some dipwad FAA Air Carrier inspector walked a General Aviation ramp and red-tagged a Twin Cessna that had Q-Tip props. Obviously they had been bent during a gear up landing - sigh. Let's hope it's something like that. Here's hoping that your paperwork is in order. Keep us posted.

No more calls folks, we have a winner! But I'll change the strategy to use the sferics detectors strategically as well - just because they often don't have the short-range resolution that "current" radar has when you're dodging and weaving through a line of thunderstiorms. XM weather is handy and we've got it on our company's corporate jets, but the problem with it is that the information can become "stale" when things are really popping. Personally, I use sferics detectors (Stormscopes, Strike Finders, LSS, etc.) to decide which areas I want to circumnavigate and weather radar, because of its greater resolution, to do the circumnavigation. Weather radar essentially only shows two things - water and dirt and not all rainfall is associated with convective turbulence. Lacking airborne weather radar, XM weather is your next best option, but you have to recognize its limitations. All three of these tools - airborne weather radar, sferics detectors and XM weather - have three separate, but complimentary, uses.

If any of you have misgivings about stalling any light aircraft you need additional training. There I said it. I highly recommend (for all pilots) taking a course in Extreme Unusual Attitude Recovery/Extreme Maneuvers Training/Basic Aerobatics. They are available at a location near you and should be a periodic part of every pilot's personal recurrency program. http://www.iacusn.org/schools/

It's an airplane - Inspect and Replace As Necessary.

What you're talking about is maximizing your specific range (efficiency) and all things considered it's about the most economical way to operate your airplane based on cost per mile. So when you've got a place to go it makes sense, if you're just out boring wholes in the sky there's really no need. I'd only add that you also need to select your cruising altitude(s) carefully - rules of thumb don't always work. All that being said, it really only makes a significant difference when you're trying to operate out near the extremes of your range and even then it won't be all that much. Unless you happen to be one who enjoys playing those games, it's probably not worth the bother. For the record, I'm one who likes playing those games - in my work airplane I can normally hit fuel burn and time within a 100 pounds and a minute or two on a non-stop, coast-to-coast trip and beat the AFM performance numbers doing it. It gives me something to do on those frequent long-haul trips.

(I'm sorry too, it is hard to resist. )

It's very common to get "descend via" clearances in jets, but you probably won't get them very often if at all propeller-driven aircraft - even the fastest prop jobs have trouble maintaining the pace that the jets set. As for the OP's question - when in doubt, always ask ATC.

Interesting topic, but I'm wondering where this is leading? Are we advocating that it’s OK to operate early Js “a bit” over gross here? What about if 2900 lbs isn't quite enough? IS it OK to rationalize 3200 lbs? What if that isn't quite enough? How much is too much? Where do you draw the line? This discussion isn't limited to Mooneys, King Air 200s come from the factory with a max certificated gross weight of 12,500 lbs, but the military operates them at 14,000+ lbs and you can buy an STC that raises the max weight on the civilian models to well above 12,500 lbs and requires a King Air 200 type rating for the pilot. Is a King Air 200 pilot justified in flying a stock KA-200 at more than 12,500 lbs because other identical aircraft can? Just about every corporate jet I've flown have had max gross weight increases over the years. Is a pilot justified to simply ignore the provisions of the STC? There are other, totally arbitrary, factors that can enter into the equation as well. The main reason the King Air 200 was limited to 12500 lbs was to simply to avoid the need of a civilian type rating. Early Cessna 340s were limited to 5990 lbs to keep them out of a higher federal excise tax tax bracket which went into effect at 6000 lbs. And IIRC, there were also several singles that limited out at 2490 lbs to avoid an excise tax category came into play at 2500 lbs. There are also limits on weight on some larger singles because they must comply with a 61 knot max stall speed and once you've done all of the aerodynamic tricks, the only other thing left is to limit weight. Other things are arbitrarily limited as well. For example, MU-2s were limited on the amount of torque you could pull by the certification requirement to keep Vmc to "less than 100 kcas". When you start messing around with maximum allowable weights you get into all sorts of other areas as well. A long time ago, most aircraft manufacturers adopted the principle of "loading flexibility” - in other words, Mooney, Piper, Cessna, Beech and just about every other aircraft manufacturer make aircraft that have seats than can be used if topped off with fuel. In other words, it doesn't matter whether you're flying a business jet (or airliner) or a Cessna 172, you are probably only able to fill all of your seats or fill your fuel tanks, but not both at the same time (legally). I’ve got PIC time in over 105 different makes and models of aircraft, from gliders to jets, and I can count on one hand the number of them that you could honestly load up and go without regard to loading. Loading Flexibility is a legitimate approach; but history has shown us time and time again that there are many of us out there who have no idea of how the concept works. Silly pilots, many of us still think that if we've got 4 seats we ought to be able to top off the tanks, load up all the seats, and go. However, if you're willing to ignore your airplane's limitations, legalities, and insurance ramifications involved, you pretty much can because there is nothing magical about that max gross weight number – the airplane will continue to fly.

If it's drifting enough for you to be asking the question "is this normal", it's probably time to do something about it.

Here's all you need...

It's on YouTube. Just search for Icon Angle of Attack and you'll get it.

I ran across this AoA Primer. It's one of the best explanations I've seen.

You are correct, hours, in themselves, don't mean much. It's what you've done during those hours that matters. There is a difference between a thousand hours of experience and one hour of experience repeated 1000 times.

Several years ago I got back into flying light airplanes after a 20 year hiatus of flying nothing but transport category jets. Those first few landings where humbling to say the least. The guy who was checking me out in his Turbo 210 winced after a couple of those landings. My favorite "airline guy trying to land a little airplane" experience was about 30 years ago when I was checking out one of my airline friends (Now a retired chief pilot at the airline.) in a sailplane. The guy was an accomplished glider pilot, but it had been a few years. In the meantime he had logged several thousand hours in "Seven twos" and DC-10s. You don't flare a glider and you really don't want to flare a glider 50 feet in the air. Oh and by the way, the brakes on a glider are usually on the spoiler handle, not the rudder pedals. Fortunately, we got it on the ground and stopped without doing any damage to anything but his pride. We had a good laugh and things came back quickly. Thank goodness.

What difference does that make? Experience doesn't somehow allow you to manipulate the controls any better, it lets you fly smarter.

15,000 hours total, 10,000 hours jet, 600 hours Mooney.

You can't keep a good airplane down!

Not this guy. Breaking out at 200' with just 1/2 vis is not the time or the place to be screwing around with configuration changes in any airplane. Just land with whatever setting you used during the approach. There's seldom a need to put in the balance of the flaps if the approach was flown with less than full flaps. Now if you're shooting an approach to higher minimums, say 700+ ft and 1+ mile, then I see nothing wrong with your advice.

I'm not trying to be flippant, but you're really talking to the wrong crowd. For starters, I'd be going to the POH and any pertinent supplements. (Which you've done.) Then I'd take a look at your actual engine manual; after that, I'd get a hold of a Continental Tech Rep. For giggles I'd back that up with the available information out there written by former Mooney test pilots. If any of the above leaves you with any questions then I'd be talking to someone at advancedpilot.com for additional educated info. The problem with educated guys like us is that often, we're not all that educated as evidenced by all of that "so many inches per minute" stuff.